Beats Music makes API public for developers

Beats Music on Friday followed in the footsteps of competitors like Rdio and Spotify by making its API public. Prior to today, the company only released the API to a few select partners to create integrations with devices like the Sonos wireless speaker.

Developers now have access to Beats’ catalog of over 20 million tracks in addition to metadata, artist and album art, personal recommendations and the team’s own curated content. The latter is what Beats believe makes their service unique among the sea of other streaming music providers.

In an interview with CNET, Beats Music Chief Executive Ian C. Rogers said it isn’t just about giving access to the catalog of music. It’s about people who are subscribers to a premium music service that has premium music features. As a subscriber, Rogers said, you should have access anywhere.

And that’s exactly what the open API is really all about – allowing developers to tap into the service and make it available on more platforms.

Elsewhere, Beats also created and released source code for some applications built using their API. One such example is a MOG playlist mover, which allows former users of the MOG service to move their playlist over to Beats Music. If you recall, Beats purchased MOG in 2012 as the basis of their own music service.

Have you tried Beats Music yet and if so, what do you think about it compared to other services like Rhapsody and Spotify?